Secretary-General Antonio Guterres along with Kelly Craft
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres along with Kelly Craft, Permanent Representative of the United States of America to the United Nation During the Meeting on Improving Peacekeeping Performance A Year Since UNSCR 2436 today at the UN Headquarters in New York.
Photo: Luiz Rampelotto/EuropaNewswire
United Nations, December 06, 2019
Secretary-General António Guterres said United Nations peacekeepers “represent the last, best hope for millions of people around the world” and highlighted that his Action for Peacekeeping initiative, launched in March last year, as the organization’s response to the challenges peacekeepers face.
Addressing a meeting on “Improving Peacekeeping Performance: A Year Since UNSCR 2436,” Guterres said, “across all missions, we have introduced new systems and tools to evaluate performance,” including regular military and police unit evaluations and a hospital evaluation system.
The Secretary-General stressed the importance of finding political solutions “in all efforts to achieve sustainable peace.”
He said, “the conflict in the Central African Republic is just one example in which the signing of a peace agreement, through close coordination with the African Union and the Economic Community of Central African States, led to a significant reduction in violence and civilian deaths.”
He said elsewhere, “political solutions often remain elusive,” noting that in South Sudan, “we have not yet made the progress we hoped for.” In Mali he said, “the implementation of the Algiers agreement has been too slow.”
Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix told the meeting that “improving the effectiveness of peacekeeping operations is a collective undertaking” which “starts with well-tailored and prioritized mandates.”
Lacroix said, “ensuring that peacekeepers have the requisite training and capacity, in many cases entails member states providing the requisite support,” as well as “the requisite financing to effectively carry out our mandate.”
Security Council Resolution 2436, unanimously adopted in 2018, aimed at enhancing the performance of peacekeeping personnel at all levels, both at Headquarters and in the field, stressing the need to improve posture, behavior, leadership, initiative, and accountability while effectively promoting international peace and security.
The resolution welcomed efforts undertaken by the Secretary-General to mobilize all partners and stakeholders in support of more effective United Nations peacekeeping through his initiative ‘Action for Peacekeeping.’
Today’s meeting was co-organized by the Permanent Missions of the United States, India, Portugal, Senegal, Uruguay, and Viet Nam.
Source: UNTV, EuropaNewswire